This application claims no benefits derived from any earlier filed US or foreign patent applications.
In the fast-food restaurant industry, elongated prepared foods, such as french-fries, chicken strips, bread sticks, pastries, and such are often sold to consumers packaged in elongated disposable containers, typically having a wider open upper end and a narrower enclosed lower end. In order to minimize materials cost and assembly costs, and provide an easily collapsible and nestable container, the fast-food restaurant industry has generally standardized the use of pouch-style paperboard containers formed from a single paperboard blank using minimal amounts of assembly labor.
With the upper end typically being wider than the lower end of the paperboard pouch, a filled paperboard pouch is unstable when disposed in an upright position. Accordingly, it is common practice for consumers to use the paperboard pouches by resting the pouch on a tabletop in a more stable, laterally extended position to minimize accidental spillage.
Elongated prepared foods are often served in conjunction with a condiment so that the consumer can dip the food into the condiment while dining. The most popularly used condiments are liquid or semi-liquid condiments such as ketchup, mustard, dressings, honey, syrup, icing, relish, and the like. Thus it is necessary to provide some type of surface or container for accessing the condiment. This oftentimes proves to be a messy dilemma.
In recent attempts to improve the fast-food condiment dilemma, several two-compartment paperboard pouches have been designed especially to accommodate dipping by including a separate compartment suitable for containing a condiment. Examples of such designs are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,720,429; 5,626,283; 4,955,528; 6,119,930; 5,540,333; 5,630,544; and 6,102,208. Unfortunately, the two-compartment pouches disclosed in each of the above listed patents are designed for use in the upright position, the position that is most unstable for a pouch-style paperboard container. If disposed in the popular laterally extended position, the condiment would deleteriously pour out of the condiment compartment.
In light of the above, it would be desirable to provide a paperboard pouch-style container having separate compartments for elongated food and condiment that is particularly suited for use while positioned in a laterally extended position. It would be further desirable if such container were formed by folding and affixing a single die cut and from a pliable material such as paperboard. It would be even further desirable if such container were easily convertible between a single compartment container and a multi-compartment container, depending upon the ultimate use thereof.
The present invention includes a container formed from a single blank. The container comprises
an enclosed base end, an open upper end, a front panel, a rear panel, a right side and a left side;
a single plane intersecting each of said front and rear panels between the enclosed lower end and the open upper end;
the rear panel defining a slit therethrough in the plane;
the front panel having a fold line extending between a first point and a second point in said plane; and
the front panel including a perforation row extending downwardly from the first point and said second point defining a converting flap therebetween,
wherein the converting flap has a shape sufficient so that, when the converting flap is separated from the front panel along the perforation row and folded along the fold line the flap is positionable between the front panel and the rear panel in the plane and is partially receivable through the slit, thus providing an upper compartment and a lower compartment separated by the converting flap.
The present invention further includes the single blank from which the container of the present invention is formed.